The Body In the Belfry (18 page)

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Authors: Katherine Hall Page

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When Hope went back to work, Faith decided to sit a while longer. Benjamin was lying back in the lie-back and she thought he might go to sleep. She watched her sister walk purposefully across the park. A woman with a definite place to go and definite things to do. How could two children in one family be so different? They even looked different. Hope was tall and dark, like the Sibleys. She had rather exotic green eyes, which didn't come from anyone in the family. Faith had always thought they were some kind of attribute dreamed up by Hope herself. Faith wouldn't have minded having those green eyes herself. She was sure Hope had been turning heads on Wall Street and not just rolling them, but Quentin was the first man her sister had ever been serious about. He'd better be good to her, Faith thought fiercely. If it took a BMW to make her little sister happy, then so be it.
Faith and Hope had one of those typical close sister relationships: love, hate; defense, attack; pride, jealousy. Today was a loving, protective, admiring day and Faith was happy. Someday she'd find a way to tell her sister how much she loathed being called “Fay.” Fortunately, Hope was the only one who did so.
Benjamin was asleep. As Faith sat on the bench watching passersby, she mused about families. “For better or worse” should be on one's birth certificate as well as in one's wedding vows. All those inextricable—or was it inexplicable?—bonds. “Family” brought her back to Aleford, where these ties were not only tight, but sacred. More than a birthright. Generation after generation defined by who you were: “One of the Appletons” or “I'm a Forbes, you know.” Quiet pride, or in cases like Millicent's, something a bit more extreme. In Aleford
even the skeletons in the closet were reverentially dusted, although usually years later. Faith realized she was feeling a slight twinge of nostalgia for the town's leisurely pace, which she quelled immediately by leaping to her feet and heading for Bloomingdale's.
That night she decided to call her Aunt Chat and see if she wanted visitors the next day. Charity Sibley was Lawrence's oldest sister and lived in Mendham, New Jersey. She had been divorced for so long that Faith couldn't remember what her husband had been like. Chat had retired some years ago after a highly successful career on Madison Avenue, breaking in at a time when few women were working there. Eventually she had started her own agency, which she sold when she retired for Tom's veritable “beaucoup de bacon.” Now, when she wasn't traveling, she lived in the country complete with horses, pond for swimming, and a tennis court she didn't use. “But people always want to play,” she explained to Faith, who had been surprised to see it the first time she visited. Aunt Chat's idea of vigorous exercise was a stately breaststroke across and back some small body of water.
Charity said she would be delighted to see Faith and Benjamin the next day for lunch. Faith hung up and started to prepare dinner. Hope was coming and Faith had promised to get her out in time for her date with Quentin.
She began to deftly fill some wonton skins with a mixture of finely ground smoked turkey and scallions, which would serve as their first course, floating in a light broth with crème fraiche for those who wanted a dollop. As she worked, she began to think about Aleford, which had receded to the background these last few days, except for the feeling of unease with which she awoke each morning, not altogether explained by the absence of Tom's familiar warm body in the bed beside her. He called
every night and there was nothing new to report. Dunne had been more interested in Millicent as a possibility than MacIsaac had, and planned to pay her a visit. Faith wondered where on earth he was going to sit, if he could even get in the house.
Faith planned to stay in New York until Sunday night or Monday morning. She didn't want to miss seeing her Sibley grandmother and the whole family was going out there on Saturday. It was good to have had a break, but she was getting restless in exile. And she missed Tom.
The wontons were done and Faith took out the rack of lamb she had bought as a surprise for her father. It was his favorite and Faith was pretty sure he wasn't eating it every night for dinner, her mother's idea of nourishment being a piece of fish and a nice salad.
As she rubbed the lamb with a clove of garlic, she wondered what Aunt Chat would have to say about everything tomorrow. Chats with Chat had been a childhood joke, but very important to Faith. Her aunt had also been one of her main supporters when she wanted to start
Have Faith
and everyone else thought she was crazy.
She washed some greens for her mother's salad and made a gratinée of winter fruits with calvados to be whisked under the broiler at the last minute. There was still plenty of time before dinner to play with Benjamin and nibble at his tiny toes.
Faith had hoped her father might be free to go with her to Mendham, but at dinner he told her he couldn't get away, although if she stayed around and kept cooking the way she was, he might be unable to refuse her anything.
It was a slightly uproarious meal, especially for them, Faith reflected. They indulged in some gallows humor at Aleford's expense and Tom's, what with his parishioners
in a revolving door situation at the police station and worse. Faith felt better than she had in days. It really did seem a long way away and not of such earth-shaking importance at that.
Benjamin reclined in his little tilted seat. Faith never knew what these things were called—baby holders? bundle boards? or wasn't that for some other purpose? He smiled and waved and bore a striking resemblance to the Queen Mother, except without the hat. Of course, if Quentin had come to dinner the resemblance might well have been to Jekyll and Hyde. Children were nothing if not mysterious. Like those paper balls you had as a child. You'd unwind yards of tissue paper and end up with a plastic whistle that didn't work or a beautiful ruby ring you could swear was real. Every day with a baby was like opening a prize ball.
 
The next morning Faith and Benjamin made their way alone out to Mendham; Faith getting lost almost as soon as she crossed the Hudson just like any other self-respecting New Yorker. They arrived at Aunt Chat's at around eleven. She was in the garden reading, quite buried under a huge hat and a mountain of coats and shawls.
“Faith! Benjamin! How dear of you to come all this way. Do you want to sit outside? I couldn't resist, it was so lovely and warm.”
Faith, whose lips were beginning to turn blue despite the sunshine, declined. Chat, though quite unathletic, was as hardy as the rest of the Sibleys. It took a minute or two for her to collect all her things—glasses, paper, book, throws, Thermos of tea. The Thermos reminded Faith momentarily of Patricia. It was like the one she had sent along with them on the boat. Faith wondered how she was and realized that last night's flippant Aleford humor had not dispelled her deep unease about it
all. Patricia's ambiguous warning, the rose, the murder itself.
“Do I hear a sigh? How uncharacteristic. Come on, Faith, let's go inside and I'll light a fire to warm those little bird bones of yours and you can tell me everything while I cuddle Benjamin. And I won't even mind if he throws up all over me like last time.”
“He doesn't do that anymore, Aunt Chat, or at least he hasn't lately,” said Faith, slightly aggrieved at the mention of any imperfection in her offspring.
They moved indoors and settled down before the fire in the big stone fireplace that dominated the living room. The house was a complete mishmash. Parts of it dated to the late 1700s, while others were added on in what the owners somewhat benightedly thought was the same style. Rooms trailed on, one after the other, petering off in balconies or stairways. The kitchen had been added on most recently and was enormous. The room they were in now was adjacent to it, but was one of the original ones. Yet somehow the house seemed all of a piece, or maybe it was Chat's sense of design that unified it. It was American Comfortable—lots of quilts thrown over tables or hanging on the walls, bright fabrics covering soft chairs and footstools, bookcases everywhere, some with books and some with Chat's collection of folk art animals from all over the world. You assumed she had lived in the house for a lifetime, but it had actually been purchased after her retirement when she had moved out of her New York apartment to the accompaniment of dire predictions of loneliness and vegetation from all her friends. In fact she was seldom without company, except when she chose. The house had every comfort, including sauna and whirlpool. The gardens were lovely and people tended to look at Chat's as a kind of ideal vacation spot. As did she.
Faith stretched her legs toward the fire, glancing out
the window toward the paddock where the horses strolled picturesquely.
“This really is wonderful, Chat. But who would have thunk it? I never pictured you as a country girl.”
Her aunt laughed. “You forget I grew up in the country, Faith. Besides I wanted more space so I could finally get everything out of storage. I can't imagine how I lived in that tiny apartment all those years.”
That tiny apartment had been an entire floor in one of the San Remo towers, but Faith supposed compared to this sprawling place it was tiny.
Benjamin was cozily ensconced in Chat's lap—a pretty roomy one. Like all the Sibleys she was tall and was discreetly referred to by the family as a “big girl.” Her hair was almost completely white and very thick. She had dyed it while she was working and afterward the tidy dark bun had gradually given way to an equally tidy white one.
“Lunch is all made, Faith, or rather bought. And you will probably hate it, seafood quiche from the local gourmet shop and some kind of salad with lots of things in it, but I'll give you a glass of wine and you'll be polite enough not to notice.”
Faith was sorry she had the reputation for being a food snob, but work was work and standards were standards.
“So, love, what the hell is going on in that parish of yours? Are you sure it's not Salem or Stepford or one of those places? New England is always so unpredictable. You never know what they're going to do—vote for the most radical or the most conservative candidate; secede and start a new country. Anyway, I'm rambling. Start from the beginning and go to the end.”
Chat looked increasingly serious as Faith related the events of the last two weeks. At some point she put Benjamin down on the floor to give Faith her undivided attention.
Faith told all. Well, maybe she glossed over Scott Phelan a little, but then he wasn't really in the picture now that Dave was out of the running and her aunt just might react the way Tom had and once was more than enough. When Faith told her about finding the rose in the mailbox, Chat stood up and said, “Lunch. I want that glass of wine now and so do you.”
At the table over what turned out to be pretty good quiche and really quite a good salad, Faith finished the tale. “So you see it's not over yet. It won't be until they find out who killed Cindy, or as far as I'm concerned, who sent the rose.”
“Or maybe both,” said Chat.
“Exactly. That's really what's worrying Tom—and me too, of course, but it all seems so improbable.”
“Faith, honey, the whole thing seems improbable. If I didn't hear it from your own lips, I would say it was some kind of plot for a novel, a rather farfetched one at that. Really—Millicent Revere McKinley and an oversized detective named John Dunne.”
“His mother liked poetry,” Faith replied automatically.
“Fine, but there are limits. No, the whole thing is crazy and the craziest part is that you are mixed up in the middle. And a lot of it is your own fault.”
Heavens, thought Faith, another talking to?
“You don't have enough to do up there, so you're bored and when a body literally falls into your lap, you treat it as a heaven-sent opportunity for excitement, instead of the dangerous mess it is. Now, do admit Faith, I know Benjamin is a darling, in fact the most darling baby in the world, but don't you find all these hours with him the teensiest bit enervating?”
You could never hide much from Chat, Faith reflected as she answered her aunt.
“Of course it's boring, but it's also wonderful and besides
it's not for long. In fact it's for too short a time. Already I can't remember what he was like the first few weeks. And of course I feel guilty for being restless. Yes,” catching the slightly triumphant look in her aunt's eye, “you are right, I am. I do admit it. I would like to have my fingers in a pie again, preferably one of my own making. But Chat, this is the choice I made and it's the right one. All my friends with babies either feel guilty because they are home or because they're not. It's a completely no-win situation, so you just have to accept it.”
“Now say you're glad you don't have to work because you wouldn't miss this for the world,” said Chat all in one breath.
“No need to be nasty. It's true. And everything else is true, too. I miss New York, and the little part of New Jersey that is forever you, and I miss working, but I wouldn't miss this for anything.” Benjamin at that moment was fortuitously most engaging. He rolled over and babbled up at them lovingly from the quilt Chat had spread on the floor. A patch of sunlight hung over his head like a halo and Faith felt vindicated.

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